If just writing zOMG! wasn’t fun enough, this new free-to-play offering from Gaia Online will certainly bring a smile to your face. Unleashed upon the public last Thursday, this is Gaia’s first casual MMO game. Having completed a successful closed beta test, the open beta zOMG! is an adventure game that pits players against monsters in 16 different zones with a wide variety of battle rings and recipes to choose from. Gaia Online seeks to successfully meld the attractiveness of the online social community experience with a fun and enjoyable MMO gameplay experience.
“Our top priority is providing a high-quality MMO gaming experience that’s fun and challenging, and also user-friendly for all levels of players,” said David Georgeson, Senior Producer of zOMG! at Gaia Online. “We received a lot of great feedback from gamers during our Closed Beta, so we’re throwing open the doors as we update the game with new features and additional content.”
Listening to the community, and it’s needs and wants, has never been something that Gaia has shied away from, and by opening the beta doors, they’re expecting an even larger pool of feedback and suggestions to learn from. Gaia is actively soliciting feedback from players via the site’s message boards and forums.
Lucy Newman over at gamertell.com reports on Kate Pietrelli’s announcement surrounding zOMG!
“In development since 2006, zOMG! is a fun and engaging casual game that blends social online community experiences with accessible MMO gameplay. Gaia community members currently hang out in the virtual world with their friends, watch movies online together in the theater, share artwork in the online art gallery, and chat through the Gaia Instant Messaging (GIM) system. The community asked for new ways in which they could interact and play with their friends in Gaia, and so the MMO game was designed to be an extension of the Gaia virtual world with all the fun social elements of chatting and hanging out with friends, in addition to playing a challenging multiplayer game with quests, monsters, battles and more. Gaia Online will monetize the game through the sale of virtual goods (battle armor, rings, etc.), which tie into their current microtransactions based business model.”
While I’ve yet to personally give the game a look-over, I have visited and spent some time with Gaia, and I can’t imagine they’d deliver anything less than outstanding. Grinding rep this weekend was about as thrilling as watching the grass grow, so perhaps a break from the uphill battle is just what the doctor ordered….and with a name like zOMG! you just KNOW there’s got to be some fun somewhere therein.
